LEWISTON — Councilors did away with a 10 p.m. meeting deadline, one of their first official actions Tuesday night.
Councilors voted 4-3 to have no scheduled ending time for their regular meetings, according to City Clerk Kathy Montejo.
A previous City Council adopted the 10 p.m. ending time in 2007, after a couple of meetings went until 1 a.m. The council could choose to extend meetings later into the night with five votes, under the old rule.
Councilor Larry Poulin, one of three councilors that voted to keep the 10 p.m. deadline, said he thought the limit had worked well for the past two years.
“We were able to make that judgment, if there were important items on the agenda, and just continue on,” Poulin said. “People don’t make good decisions if things go on too long. Each item on the agenda needs to be considered in a thoughtful manner, and not rushed through.”
Council President Steve Morgan, who voted to end the meeting deadline, said councilors can still vote to end meetings.
“If we start an item at 9:30 p.m., and it looks like its going to keep going, we should just finish it,” he said. “If a meeting looks like it’s going to really drag on, we can still choose to table items and come back at them fresh later on. But we just didn’t think we needed and official ending time.”
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